South Bronx community activists upset with Yankee Stadium land deal

I know a few readers here have grown tired of my new stadium posts, but I have my reasons for following this story. I’m a firm believer in good government (as is evidenced by my other blog focusing on the MTA), and I don’t think the stadium financing and the land deals represent anything close to good government. So bear with me, and if you don’t like it, read about Huston Street.

A sneaky city land “giveaway” will turn over former Parks Department property to real-estate developers – and further infuriate activists in the park-starved South Bronx neighborhood near Yankee Stadium, The Post has learned.

When the city gave up plans for a parking garage on East 151st Street between River and Gerard avenues last fall, the property was set aside for “neighborhood-oriented mixed use, retail or parking,” according to documents…

What’s unclear, said Geoffrey Croft, of NYC Park Advocates, is whether a state law allowing South Bronx parkland to be used for the stadium project permits commercial development on the site, south of the stadium and adjacent to the Bronx Terminal Market shopping mall now under construction.

In the grand scheme of problems with the stadium deal, this little trade-off isn’t nearly as sneaky as the Post would have believe, and the Parks Department didn’t consider their former holdings at E. 151st St. as green parkland. However, with parkland at such a premium in the South Bronx, the city’s surrendered land shouldn’t be going to real estate developers.